MySpace a place for friends

My name's Eric. It's taken me a while to come to terms with the fact that I really am one of those people with a music myspace, but I think I'm starting to do so.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the problem of musicians promoting themselves on social networking sites, and I've come to a simple conclusion: the myspace model doesn't work. For the average person (read: a person who doesn't sympathize with the struggles of other musicians), the ability to simply enjoy new music is inevitably eroded by the constant influx of musicians seeking them out to pad out their friends lists. It's annoying enough for me, and I'm a musician.

This system doesn't do anybody any favors. It degrades music to the level of spam. Every time some upstart band telegraphs their "importance" by having a tricked-out myspace profile and showing off how many thousands of "fans" they have, it cheapens music for all involved - the artist and the audience. If you're a band trying to develop a major following through myspace, take a hint: no one's buying. Having 5,000 friends is the law-of-averages result of having sent out 5,000,000 friend requests.

For what it's worth, I'm not going to try and scam anybody, nor try to make myself out to be more "professional" than I am. My music is recorded in a bedroom. I have no "connections" whatsoever. I'm not selling anything and I don't really expect anything from anyone who might be kind enough to actually listen. As clichéd as it sounds, I really do just do this because I enjoy it. I'd love for people to hear my stuff, but I'm not going to be like those people about it. Assess my music exactly like you would if one of your friends was like "hey, I wrote a song, I'll let you hear it if you want." I don't think anyone should ever be any more presumptuous about their music than that.

Discography:
Invincible, November 2001
Humored, October 2005
The Eric Condon Songbook, Volumes 1-3, January-May 2006
Hobbyhorse, The Ballad Of..., October 2008